Extreme Gratitude in an Extreme Situation

This spring, my dad was suddenly brought to his knees when his auto-immune / neuromuscular condition reared its head. An extreme stituation to be sure! If you haven’t heard the story of how it unfolded, Grace shared it on Instagram a while back (May 25th to be exact!) and it went like this:

Lately, I’ve been reading “The Broken Way” by Ann Voskamp and she poses a couple of tough questions! “What if the abundant life isn’t about having better stories to share but about living a story that lets others live better? What if the goal isn’t to experience more of the world but for more of the world to experience more?”

From the cradle to the grave is a term that we understand to mean: throughout our lives; from beginning to end. We all have dreams and ideas of how life will unfold and what the typical life journey should look like. Unfortunately, the road is not clearly marked and is rarely even paved!

We start school at the ripe-old age of 5 and set our sights on getting through school so we can be “free” from the school routines, homework and exams that get in the way of our living. Then we are abruptly cast into the work force to find our wings. We navigate our careers and work to climb up ladders (to who knows where).

Golden Handcuffs

We opt-in to pensions plans and contribute to our retirement plans, all the while moving the goal line to whatever age our magic retirement calculator tells us is the financially best for us to shirk off the golden handcuffs of employment and embrace our retirement. Early retirement if we’re really lucky!

We may marry and raise a family and fight to keep a work-life balance, spending quality family time together during vacations that are limited in number – due to finances and our vacation calendars at work. 17 days a year. Maybe 22. Spent recovering and unwinding from the busyness of life.

And then the day finally comes that we have enough candles on our birthday cake and we are “free”. We look forward to the life we have always dreamed of. Time to travel. Time to pursue our hobbies. Time to spend with our families – who are now too busy themselves, or also caught with limited vacation time and a hamster-wheel hangover at the end of each work week.

And of course, with those golden retirement years come hip replacements, knee replacements, arthritis, heart attacks, strokes, high cholesterol and the ever-dreaded C word. Some of get through easily enough. Others not so much so.

And then one day, it’s all over. The eulogy of your life is shared. The boxes of memories are packed away. The knowledge and experiences you have stored up over the years, now exists only in what you’ve written down or passed along to others. It is a sobering thought.

Trying it a Different Way

So, let’s propose trying it a different way! What does that look like? If only we knew! But seriously, there has to be a better way!

There are lots of parents who are breaking away from the pack. It is not uncommon for men to take paternity-leaves or put on the hat of stay-at-home-dad. And there are so many business women who are switching up their careers so they can be a stay-at-home-mom to their children. The questions that are often asked: why would we want someone else to raise our children? Why wouldn’t we want to spend these precious and short-lived years with them while we have the chance?

We see parents chosing to home school. Some even take leaves from their careers and start businesses that they can manage from the comfort of their own homes and accommodating their own schedules and lives. Think of the freedom that affords a family. They can now take their classroom anywhere in the world! How amazing is that?

Stay-at-Home-Children?

We’ve been asking ourselves similar questions lately. Why would we want someone else to care for our parents? Why wouldn’t we want to spend these precious and numbered years with them while we have the chance?

Now, don’t ask us exactly what that looks like – because we have far from figured it out! But it’s the question that we are asking these days. What would that look like?

Can we make it happen? Do we have the energy and skill and resources to be able to even consider it? I’d say maybe to energy! Barely to skill! And unlikely to resources! At least if we want to consider pursuing our ideals of retirement when that day arrives. But honestly – we’re not sure that matters. We can’t take the green-backs with us when we go.

Live Better

What if the abundant life isn’t about having better stories to share but about living a story that lets others live better? What if the goal isn’t to experience more of the world but for more of the world to experience more?

Again, it turns my mind to the question of spending these golden years with our parents. While I still write my Goal Lists and Travel Lists – and hope to one day have many more memories and stories to share with others, living a life and creating a story that lets our parents live better, now, might just be the call to abundant living that we are to heed!

Advocating for the Best

Both Frank and I hold high personal standards when it comes to our work. While I wouldn’t necessarily call it perfectionism, there is an element of extreme quality that we measure our work against. Quality assurance and standardized processes and repeatable, predictable outcomes are things we both gravitate to!

Good, better, best. Never let it rest. ‘Til your good is better and your better is best. (St Jerome)

Translating that into the caregiving context has been interesting. We have been most appreciative of the help and support that we have received to date, as we support Frank’s folks. We have also been surprised at the room for improvement that exists. The art of anticipation and risk management has fallen short on many occasions.

Which brings us back to the question of: Why would we want someone else to care for our parents? No service agency or provider will ever care for them as much as we do. How could we ever expect them to? How could we ever expect them to go the extra mile for them, in the same ways that we would?

It is an unrealistic expectation and one that is sure to disappoint and send my blood pressure through the roof eventually.

Join us on our Journey

So, as we figure this out and start to pull together our own resources and support networks, we hope that you’ll join us. If you’re on a similar journey, we’d love to connect with you and learn from you, too! We don’t pretend to know where this road will take us, but we get up each new day and keep walking it out.

Starbucks Coffee Dates

A couple of mornings a week Grace and I have been trying to escape for a Starbucks Coffee Date! For just an hour or so, a couple of mornings a week, we have a personal support worker (PSW) in to help out at my folks’ place. While they are at the house, we go out for a little personal time and a cup of Starbucks! There are a few near to their place. But we have found one in particular that has become our little haunt. Sumatra Decaf pour over has become our drink of choice. It is Starbucks’ only Swiss-water Decaf option!

A Blog about AGING AND MORE with Grace + Frank

Every new idea starts with a seed and our blog about AGING AND MORE with Grace + Frank is no different. Its seed was planted yesterday as Frank and I [Grace] took a day off from full-time caregiving for Frank’s folks. And today, our little seed sprouted into a blog about Aging and More!

What We’re Currently Reading

“The Broken Way” by Ann Voskamp

What if the abundant life isn't about having better stories to share but about living a story that let's others live better? What if the goal isn't to experience more of the world but for more of the world to experience more?

Countdown with us as we work on completing our list of 101 goals in 1001 days! You can follow our progress in our "101 in 1001 Days - Our List of Goals" blog post! We'll keep it updated as we check them off!February 14, 2020